Family campaign jobs questioned

A Washington-based political watchdog group is flagging Republican Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers’ practice of hiring family members for congressional campaigns.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington lists McMorris Rodgers as one of 96 members of Congress who put family members on the campaign payroll in the last six years.

Her brother, Jeff McMorris, was a campaign coordinator in 2004 and 2006, receiving about $1,650 a month for parts of 2004, 2005 and 2006. Her father, Wayne McMorris, was paid $2,000 in early 2005 for work on the previous year’s election.

Hiring family for campaign work is legal, CREW executive director Melanie Sloan said, as long as the candidates meet guidelines set by the Federal Elections Commission.

A family member would have to be qualified for a campaign job and earn the fair-market value for their services.

“It doesn’t look outrageous,” Sloan said of the payments by the McMorris Rodgers’ campaign.

Jeff McMorris served as a director for both campaigns, coordinating volunteers and grass-roots activities, Lonny Leitner, the campaign policy director said Tuesday. In 2004, when McMorris Rodgers – then known as McMorris – first got into a three-way GOP primary, her brother left a job with the Washington Policy Center and took a pay cut to work for the campaign, Leitner said.

“Jeff has been active in politics in his own right. At one point he was the state vice chairman for the Republican Party,” Leitner said.

Wayne McMorris was given a one-time salary payment of $2,000 for his work in the 2004 campaign, which involved driving around the geographically large district to deliver and erect signs, and appearing at campaign events, Leitner said. In the following campaign, Wayne McMorris was reimbursed for his mileage rather than receiving a salary payment.

“They did check with the FEC and followed all the rules,” Leitner said.

Only one other member of Congress from the Northwest appears on the CREW list. Republican Rep. Dave Reichert, who represents Bellevue and other east King County areas, paid his nephew, Todd Reichert, about $3,000 plus reimbursements for gasoline to serve as his driver in the 2004 campaign.

Sloan said the organization is worried about the potential for abuse when a candidate spends campaign money to employ a family member, but is not making a value judgment about the payment by any particular member of Congress to a family member.

“Their constituents, at least, have the right to know … and they should make a judgment,” she said.